


We'll Show Them All

by kaydeefalls



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies), X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Canon Disabled Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Drift Compatibility, Getting Back Together, M/M, Team Bonding, Whether they like it or not, past non-explicit trauma, reluctant romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26605030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaydeefalls/pseuds/kaydeefalls
Summary: Pacific Rim AU. Ten years later, the monsters are back, and newly-instated Marshall Charles Xavier needs to pull a team together to prepare for the coming war. That means finding his talented sister a Drift-compatible copilot -- even if that turns out to be his old flame Erik.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr & Raven | Mystique, Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier, Hank McCoy/Raven | Mystique, Raven | Mystique & Charles Xavier
Comments: 24
Kudos: 134
Collections: 2020 Cherik Bang





	We'll Show Them All

**Author's Note:**

> With huge thanks to **ireliss** for pulling double duty as both beta and AMAZING artist -- [art on Tumblr here](https://irelise.tumblr.com/post/630014819834249216/art-for-kaydeefalls-and-their-incredible-pacific)!
> 
> No knowledge of Pacific Rim required to read this fic! Basically, giant robots controlled by mind-melded copilots fight alien monsters. There, you're all caught up, enjoy.

The latest attempt to find Raven a Drift-compatible copilot ends, as predicted, in disappointment. But not in _disaster_ , so Charles philosophically decides that things are looking up.

He retreats to his office while the techs help Raven and Armando out of the Jaeger's conn-pod and gear, knowing that his sister will join him for the debrief as soon as they're all sorted. It only takes about half an hour.

"Well," Raven sighs, plopping down into the chair opposite his desk, "that could have gone better."

Charles shrugs. "It could have gone worse, too. Neither of you got lost in the Drift, no damage was done. It might be worth another try down the line."

"Might be," Raven echoes doubtfully. She runs a hand through her tousled hair, frowns when her fingers get caught on a snag, then yanks a tie off her wrist to pull the tangled mess back into a sloppy ponytail. Charles watches her steadily. Finally, she meets his gaze and pulls a face. "Oh, just say it, already. This is my fifth failed attempt. I know full well what the common denominator is here -- me."

Charles keeps his tone gentle. "There's a reason most pilots used to enter the Jaeger program as a matched set already. True Drift compatibility is relatively rare. But the technology has come a long way since you and I last Drifted together. You don't need to be totally simpatico with your copilot, you just both need to be able to share the Drift well enough to get to work."

"Yeah, well, you know I've never been good at sharing," Raven drawls. She kicks her feet up on his desk, every inch the bratty little sister, and laughs at his grimace. "Seriously, though, Charles. I can't imagine the Powers That Be are thrilled with all the time and resources you've spent trying to get me back in a Jaeger."

"Hey, I'm the Marshall of this Shatterdome," Charles says mildly. "I _am_ the Powers That Be now." He frowns, considering it. "Power That Is? Is there a singular form for that?"

"Yeah, it's called 'despot.'" Raven rolls her eyes. "Or Big Brother. Which, y'know, that one definitely fits in this case. But stop dodging the point, Charles."

"I'm not!" He totally is. "Listen, Raven, you were one of the best fighters we had during the war, and you still hold the record for highest Kaiju kill count of any pilot still living."

"That's because I'm one of the only veterans of the Kaiju War who actually survived it," she points out. "Along with you. _We_ hold that record _together_ , Charles. Not just me. Jaeger pilots come in pairs."

"Yes, well, for purposes of this conversation, I obviously don't count." Charles steeples his fingers together, examining his sister's face carefully. She looks weary and frustrated, and no wonder. Drifting -- the process of essentially mind-melding with one's copilot in order to successfully handle the neural load required to control the massive Jaeger robots -- is exhausting even under the best of circumstances. Attempting the neural handshake with a near-stranger for the first time is never a particularly enjoyable experience. "I'm not ready to give up on you, Raven. It's just a matter of finding you the right partner. Unless…" He hesitates, softening his tone. "Do you not want to do this anymore? Because I would absolutely respect that--"

"Oh, I do," Raven says at once, eyes widening. "Of _course_ I do. Piloting a Jaeger...it's the only thing I've ever really been good at." She smiles wistfully. "I just don't think my head's a good place for anyone to be in, these days. Myself included."

He hesitates again, not wanting to prompt another rehash of an old argument, but... "If you'd like me to try--"

"No," she snaps. "Charles, we've talked about this."

"I'm just saying, if you're having trouble letting anyone else in, you know I could--"

Raven gets to her feet. "Stay out of my head, Charles," she says, adamant in her resolve. "You don't know what it's like in here. Not anymore." When she looks down at him, there's something close to pity in her gray eyes. "You know what? Lately, I'm not even sure you and I would be Drift compatible at all."

It hurts more than he'll ever let on. He lets her turn on her heel and walk out without another word, even though he's her superior officer and she's supposed to wait to be formally dismissed. Well, Charles himself has always been negligent at best when it comes to hierarchy, and they technically fall under the purview of the United Nations and aren't considered a military force anyway. So he can't really hold that against her.

* * *

Years ago, during the Kaiju War, Charles had known the Anchorage Shatterdome like the back of his hand. This was where he and Raven had been assigned as copilots straight out of the Jaeger Academy. He'd lived here for four years: trained endlessly in the combat sims, ate in the mess hall with the hundreds of other personnel, slept in the barracks. Like everyone else, he'd complained about the cold and dark during the long Alaskan winters and about the endless sunlight in the summer. He'd explored every nook and cranny of the base in his down time, pestered the scientists in the labs, found secret tucked-away places where he could just sit in quiet.

Or do...other activities, those fond memories now tinged with regret. Whatever else might be said of his life these days, being the boss means he's hardly able to sneak off to the maintenance room on level B5 for a quick fumble. As a hotshot young Jaeger pilot, willing partners hadn't been difficult to come by; but his circumstances have changed since then. Consent gets dodgy once rank is involved, and Charles has zero interest in pushing those particular boundaries. Besides, he's ten years older and wiser. Casual sex has lost its appeal, and his last relationship ended amicably a year or so back. Just as well. Shatterdomes aren't terribly conducive to romance.

The general layout of the base hasn't changed much. This Shatterdome, like all but one of the others, had been shut down near the end of the Kaiju War, when the world's governments deemed the Jaeger Program too costly and dangerous. They hadn't been entirely wrong. At first, when the monstrous alien Kaiju emerged from an otherworldly Breach in the depths of the Pacific Ocean to wreak havoc upon coastal cities, the Jaegers -- essentially enormous robots with a wide array of weaponry built in, controlled via neural and physical interface by a team of copilots -- quickly became humanity's first and best line of defense. It had felt like being a god, having that much destructive power at one's command. No other high could ever quite compare.

But that was when only one Kaiju emerged from the Breach at a time, of extremely limited intelligence, with months passing between attacks. As the years went on, though, the Kaiju got smarter. They adapted. They learned how to fight the Jaegers that had killed their predecessors. And Jaegers began to be destroyed faster than they could be rebuilt -- not to mention the incalculable loss of their pilots. Charles and Raven had barely been teenagers when the Jaeger Program was first established; by the time they'd graduated from the Academy and been assigned to their own Jaeger, the tides of war had already begun to shift, and not in humanity's favor. Charles had watched other pilots -- _friends_ \-- die around him. He'd fought alongside them and watched in horror while their Jaegers were ripped apart. The atmosphere in the Shatterdome grew increasingly grim, morale dropping. And still he and Raven continued to fight the monsters together, side by side, minds wide open to each other in the Drift that enabled them to pilot their Jaeger. They'd both known that sooner or later, their number would come up.

And then it had.

They were the lucky ones. They'd survived the destruction of their Jaeger; Raven had even emerged physically intact, apart from a broken arm that healed cleanly in due course. By the time Charles had woken up from the medically-induced coma, though, the Anchorage Shatterdome had been shuttered, the program all but dismantled. He'd watched the end of the war on TV from his hospital bed, the news reporting that the Breach was closed for good, and given thanks that it was all over. So he'd thought. So they'd all thought.

Ten years later...well, here they were. Frantically reassembling the old teams, reopening the long-abandoned Shatterdomes, rebuilding the Jaegers. Because the Kaiju were coming back.

And precious few of the old guard remained to teach the new recruits how to fight them.

The circumstances have changed. This time, they know a bit more about where the Kaiju come from -- they're a genetically-engineered clone army, controlled by a race of alien invaders. The original Breach remains closed; it will take them time to open a new one. And the new Grand Marshall of the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps, Jake Pentecost, is developing a plan to bring the fight directly to them, rather than waiting passively for the rest of the Kaiju to return. In the meantime, while Pentecost and his team in Tokyo plot the offensive strike and develop the vanguard of the new Jaeger army, it falls to Charles to build up a defensive force to protect the civilians here at home.

And damn it, he really wants Raven to be among them. She's a brilliant and adaptable tactician -- certainly he can use her in the command center if she can't find a copilot, and in some ways Charles would even prefer that. She'd be much safer there than in a Jaeger. But he's never seen a more talented pilot, not during the first war nor among any of the trainees since. She has better instincts in a Jaeger than anyone else alive. Certainly she was the stronger fighter of the two of them, when they had copiloted together; Charles's talents had lain in navigating the Drift itself, taking on the bulk of the neural load so that Raven was freer to _move_.

The world will be far better protected with Raven in a Jaeger. They just need to find someone compatible with her.

That in mind, Charles navigates his way down to J-Tech. As expected, Hank is there supervising the maintenance of Raven's as-yet-unnamed new Jaeger. When he sees Charles at the bay doors, he rattles off few more instructions to the engineers and then jogs over to meet him.

"Hey," Hank says. "Figured you'd swing by eventually. Everything's fine here, there's no backwash from the failed neural handshake, she'll be good to go whenever you dig up another candidate."

Hank is the head of J-Tech, and functions as Charles's second-in-command in all but name. They've known each other since the old days, when Hank was just one of a dozen engineers charged with Jaeger maintenance and development, albeit the youngest and brightest among them. Charles, sensing that, had been quick to befriend him then, and they've worked closely together over the intervening years.

"Good," Charles says. "I assume you debriefed Armando Muñoz?"

"Of course," Hank says. "He's a cool customer, that one. Calm and steady. I look forward to seeing him out in the field."

"Do you think he'd be willing to give the handshake another try with Raven?"

Hank's mouth twists a little, and he fidgets with his glasses. "Probably, yeah. He's pretty easygoing, I'm honestly surprised they didn't work out the first time. But…"

Charles drums his fingers against the arms of his chair. "Spit it out, Hank."

"Armando already _has_ a copilot," Hank says. "I mean, I know nothing's official yet, but we've already got one of the old Mark 5 Jaegers reconstructed for them, it'll be ready to launch in a few more weeks. And I know being compatible with that asshole Summers ought to mean that he can Drift with literally anyone, but I've got to say, it seems a little short-sighted to split up a good team just in case he can somehow make it work with Raven."

"You're not wrong," Charles sighs. "Though I don't believe Alex is nearly as recalcitrant as you're making him out to be. And I'd love to see how they do together in action. But Hank, you _know_ how freakishly talented Raven is with a Jaeger. She's easily worth any ten other pilots. Hell, she's spent the past decade training up the new crop -- she's a good part of the reason Pentecost's ragtag band of raw cadets were able to repel the Kaiju attack two months ago."

"I know," Hank says, voice unwontedly gentle. "And worst case scenario, we'll still have her running all the simulations for the newbies, even if she can't get in a Jaeger herself. But I just don't think Armando's the answer."

"Maybe not. But then who is?"

"Well, Jean's got a stack of resumes for you to review," Hank points out, with all the cheer of a man who knows _he's_ not the one who has to slog through them himself. "Maybe your new ace pilot will be among them."

Charles wrinkles his nose. "Somehow, I doubt it." He looks Hank up and down consideringly. "Did you never want to be a pilot yourself? You certainly understand the technology better than just about anyone else, and you'd hardly be the first J-Techie to end up in the conn-pod. Mako Mori was one of the best in her day."

"I've run the sims, sure," Hank says with a shrug. "We've always been encouraged to, and I plan to make my team run them at least once a month. It helps us to better understand how the Jaegers fight, so that we can improve the tech behind them. During the first war, I even made it to the candidate trials."

"Right! I thought I remembered that. Never found a compatible match, though?"

Hank's mouth twists wryly. "The program was already winding down by then. They weren't really interested in taking on new pilots. Probably for the best. Why, you can't possibly want to try _me_ with Raven?"

"Well," Charles hedges. "I mean, you know that most Drift-compatible pilots are either family or, ah…"

"Lovers?" Hank finishes drily. His romance with Raven has been on-again, off-again for years. They're currently on, or Charles wouldn't be asking. "Yes, I'm aware. It thrills me to no end watching Raven try out all these potential partners, let me tell you."

"It's certainly not a forgone conclusion," Charles points out quickly. "It's just that Drifting with someone -- opening your mind to them, sharing your very thoughts, your memories...well, it's a particularly intimate experience. It forges a bond."

Hank shrugs. "So I hear. And I know it's certainly beneficial for potential copilots to have that...preexisting connection. Hence all the siblings and such. But honestly, I'm not sure my relationship with Raven would survive my being in her head."

"You're not the only one," Charles sighs. "Ah, well, it was worth a shot."

* * *

His aide, Jean, does indeed have a daunting pile of resumes awaiting his perusal, and she dumps them on his desk first thing the following morning. Most are for support personnel -- their Shatterdome was only reopened two months ago, in the wake of the renewed Kaiju attacks, and they still need a lot of help to get it fully operational. Jean has already vetted this batch; she just wants him to glance through in case anyone in particular sticks out to him before she passes them along to the various department heads.

"These are all ex-PPDC folks," she explains. "From the Kaiju War. Uh, the _first_ war, I guess, now. Anyway, they were all either discharged when the Jaeger Program was being dismantled, or retired from service after the Battle of the Breach. I thought you might recognize some names, have a better sense of where to place them now."

"They're all willingly reenlisting?" Charles asks, genuinely curious. "I know Pentecost put out the call, but he's not actively _conscripting_ veterans back into the service, is he?"

Jean shakes her head. "No, I'm pretty sure these are all volunteers. They thought the war was over; turns out, it's not, and they're ready to jump back into it."

"Good for them," Charles murmurs. "All right, I'll take a look later today."

"Um," Jean says.

Charles raises an eyebrow.

Jean flips the file open and jabs her finger at the piece of paper on top. "You're gonna want to start with that one, Marshall. Because he's, um. Here. Now."

"He's what?"

"He literally showed up at the base like an hour ago and demanded to see you," Jean says. "I think he used to be assigned here during the war, he definitely seems to know his way around the Shatterdome. Anyway, Scott's fending him off for now, but I'm pretty sure he's going to find a way past him pretty soon."

"Who on earth…" Charles starts, but then he looks down at the name on the resume and doesn't need to finish the question. His heart skips a couple of beats, which he resolutely ignores. "Oh, Christ. He'll eat Scott alive. By all means let him in."

Jean doesn't need to be told twice. That leaves Charles with nowhere near enough time to mentally prepare himself for this meeting. He fights back the completely irrational urge to straighten his jacket, instead just taking a few deep, steadying breaths. He's the goddamn Marshall now. He can handle a lot worse than one cocky ex-pilot. Not even _pilot_ , he'd never made it into an actual Jaeger, he'd only been a candidate -- a damn promising one, though, and a talented engineer to boot. Maybe Charles can fob him off directly to Hank…?

But there's no time to act on it, and anyway, he can't avoid this forever.

The door opens. Charles looks up, keeping his face impassive.

"Hello, Charles," Erik Lehnsherr says.

* * *

The first time Charles met Erik Lehnsherr was here in Anchorage, a year or so into his tenure as a Jaeger pilot. He and Raven were already racking up a respectable Kaiju kill count, and were being mentioned among the best of the Mark 4 pilots. Both also had a knack for training cadets -- Raven primarily on the simulations, while Charles preferred one-on-one combat training.

A new batch of cadets had arrived in Anchorage earlier that week, so Charles decided to stop by the Kwoon combat room to check out the newbies. The training sergeant, Moira, gave him a wink as he slipped in to watch from the back of the room. Looked like staff fighting today. It was a good way to assess compatibility between partners, though the cadets themselves rarely grasped the underlying purpose of the exercise.

"All right, let's switch things up a bit," Moira called out. The pairs of cadets immediately broke off from whacking at one another and came to something resembling attention, breathing heavily. "Anyone want to try their hand against an active Ranger?"

Charles suppressed a grin as the cadets eyed him over, obviously assessing. He knew he didn't look like much outside of a Jaeger -- shortish, physically unassuming, hair perpetually tousled, baby-faced. Even when they'd heard of him, they tended to underestimate him in person. It was why the sergeant loved throwing him to the wolves like this.

They never expected him to bite back.

"Lehnsherr," Moira said. "How about you?"

One of the cadets stepped forward with a gleam in his pale eyes. He looked to be about Charles's age, perhaps a year or two older, tall and fit, biceps flexing as he twirled the staff between his hands. Charles appraised him coolly. Cocky, aggressive, chip on his shoulder the size of a Kaiju. Overconfident. He knew the type. Moira likely wanted him to bring Lehnsherr down a peg.

He allowed himself a smile. This should be fun.

"Charmed, I'm sure," Charles said lightly, catching the staff that Moira tossed in his direction. "Shall we?"

Lehnsherr bared his teeth in something that didn't quite pass for a grin. "Let's."

Without any further warning, he attacked, swinging the staff forward in an aggressive lunge. Charles ducked under his arm and brought his staff up to deflect, using Lehnsherr's own momentum to bat him aside. Undaunted, Lehnsherr tried a sweeping upward blow, and Charles spun neatly out of range, not even bothering to defend. They continued in this manner for several more moves, Lehnsherr growing visibly frustrated with both his inability to land a hit and Charles's refusal to fully engage.

"Are we fighting or dancing?" Lehnsherr demanded.

Charles smiled. "Neither. It's a dialogue." He snapped his staff forward unexpectedly, rapping Lehnsherr sharply on his knuckles. "I'm meant to be your partner, not your enemy. Save your aggression for the Kaiju."

"Oh, believe me, I still have plenty to spare." Lehnsherr circled him grimly, then lashed out in a series of sharp jabs. "Which is your Jaeger, again? You must have a miserable kill count if you can't be fucked to go on the offense."

"The _Professor Mystique_ ," Charles informed him. He circled abruptly into Lehnsherr's sphere of defense, twisting to give Lehnsherr's backside a stinging slap with his staff. "And I've never had any complaints."

Lehnsherr's eyes widened in surprise -- at the arse-slap or Jaeger name, Charles couldn't be sure -- then narrowed. "I have heard of you. So does your copilot do all your fighting for you?"

If he'd meant it as an insult, it landed about as effectively as any of his blows so far. Charles laughed. "As a general rule, yes, she does. But I can hold my own."

And he went about proving it, scoring several hits against Lehnsherr in a whirling series of attacks. It wasn't a complete rout -- Lehnsherr seemed to relish the engagement, now that Charles was finally on the attack, and landed a point or two of his own. But Charles finished with a sweeping blow that knocked Lehnsherr's feet out from under him, dumping him ignominiously on his arse. There was scattered laughter from their small audience, and a few of the cadets applauded.

Charles grinned down at him, then extended his hand. After a long moment, Lehnsherr accepted. His grip was strong, lingering longer than strictly necessary once he was back up on his feet. Some kind of energy seemed to crackle between them, making Charles shiver pleasantly. He allowed his lips to curve into a faint smile. "Good show. I'm Charles Xavier, by the way. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Erik," Lehnsherr replied, his eyes intent on Charles's. "And likewise. I think."

His thumb brushed across Charles's knuckles before he released him. Charles's smile widened. It was always fun when newbies arrived on base.

"Thank you for the demonstration," Moira said, her voice dry as dust. "Class dismissed."

Charles let his gaze linger as Erik walked away -- he did have an _excellent_ backside. Frustration and a certain degree of suppressed anger fairly radiated off him. Talented he might be, but Erik Lehnsherr was not someone who would easily relax into the Drift enough to share it with anyone else.

"Good luck finding _him_ a copilot," Charles murmured to Moira as he returned the staff.

" _You're_ clearly Drift-compatible," she pointed out. "Quite the show you put on for us, there."

"Ah, well, too bad I'm not in the market."

She arched an eyebrow. "Aren't you?"

"Well," he said, giving her a private smile, "not for a copilot, anyway."

The first time he shagged Erik was about two weeks later, in the cramped maintenance room on level B5, and it was glorious. Charles always enjoyed helping an attractive partner work out a bit of pent-up frustration, and it was delightful to discover the other purposes to which Erik could apply all that lean strength and sharp-edged aggression. He thought he might even make a habit of this one.

It became rather more than a habit. On Charles's side, anyway. 

The trouble was, as compatible as they were sexually, there were times Charles wasn't even sure he could call Erik a _friend_ , let alone a lover.

It wasn't really anyone's fault. They were at war against a monstrous, mindless force, and they were losing. Charles grew weary of the endless battles, of watching his friends die around him; meanwhile, Erik chafed at the bit, increasingly frustrated at not being permitted to join the fight himself, stuck in engineering while those he perceived as less talented pilots were paired up and given their own Jaegers to die in. He wasn't necessarily wrong, either. But the first and foremost quality a Ranger needed was Drift compatibility, and while Erik possessed that in _theory_ , in practice, he had yet to find a match.

"You bring too much anger with you into the Drift," Charles tried to explain, after Erik's third failed neural handshake. Charles held a rarified position among Rangers; he helped monitor all neural handshakes, and interviewed both pilots extensively afterward in an attempt to improve compatibility protocols. "It's a bloody maelstrom in your head. You're tossing anyone else out before they have a chance."

Erik paced the narrow confines of his barracks like a tiger in a cage. "Of course I'm angry! These Kaiju have destroyed countless cities, murdered millions of innocent civilians -- it's unnatural _not_ to be angry! Our anger is the only thing keeping us alive."

"Your anger will get you _killed_ , if you let it control you like this," Charles retorted. "You must learn to calm your mind if you want to find a copilot. I believe that to Drift effectively, true focus lies somewhere between rage and serenity."

"And what the hell would you know about it?" Erik snarled. "You and Raven came in as a matched set already, you've never had to go through endless rounds of candidate trials. You don't know what a neural handshake with anyone else even _feels_ like. Not all of us are born lucky, Charles!"

It stung, as it always did, and Charles brushed it off, like _he_ always did. "I'm just trying to help. But there's no reaching you when you get like this, so I'll leave you to it." But Erik caught his arm as he started to walk out, eyes hot and intent, and that led to what it always led to, so he supposed he couldn't complain. That's all he and Erik were to each other anyway.

But there were good times, too. Like when they managed to finagle simultaneous 24-hour leave, and hiked out to Point Woronzof in the dead of winter at midnight to watch the Northern Lights shimmer, wraithlike, over the water. Charles thought they both might freeze to death, but God, the sheer beauty of it all had been worth it. Afterward, they huddled together in the back of their borrowed truck with the heater on full blast sharing a flask of whisky, and Erik told him in halting tones about his parents, both scientists in the earliest days of the war, who had been killed when a Kaiju destroyed the first Shatterdome in Sydney when Erik was just a child. Charles simply listened until he'd talked himself out, and then drew Erik's face down to his and kissed him, soft and slow. Erik's lips tasted of whisky and salt. Charles had never seen him cry before; he somehow doubted anyone else ever had.

Or once, near the end, after a particularly miserable fight against a category three Kaiju. The mortally wounded Kaiju had spat some kind of corrosive acid at them in its death throes, which temporarily shorted out the _Professor Mystique_ 's power and left them stranded, dark and silent in the middle of the Bering Sea, until the backup generator kicked in. Even once their Jaeger was live again -- for some loose definition of the word -- they were functionally offline, with no means of communicating with the Shatterdome. Not the most fun Charles had ever had. Fortunately, the Marshall had already dispatched retrieval choppers based on their last known location, and they were back in Anchorage within a few hours. As soon as they were freed from their conn-pods, Raven more or less collapsed into Charles's arms, shaking uncontrollably from the adrenaline crash and residual terror, and he hadn't felt much better himself.

When the techs and medics finally released them, Charles found Erik waiting for him at the door to his bunk, white-faced and looking inexplicably shaky himself. The sex was hard and frantic, and afterward, Erik curled his long body around Charles's, still holding on too tightly.

"When your Jaeger went offline," Erik said roughly. "On the screen, it just...blipped out. Like all the others do, when they're…"

_Dead_ , he didn't finish, though Charles heard it anyway. They stayed that way all night, pressed close together, listening to each other breathe. In the morning, Erik was gone, as usual, and they never spoke of that particular battle again.

The last time he'd seen or spoken with Erik was shortly before being called out for what would be his final engagement. Charles had just emerged from an excruciatingly long logistics meeting, and all he wanted was to curl up in his bunk and sleep for roughly twelve hours straight. So he wasn't in the best mood when Erik intercepted him in the hallway, clearly itching for a fight.

"It's true, then?" Erik demanded. "They're shutting down the Panama City base?"

Charles scrubbed his hand across his face. There was a headache building directly behind his eyes. "Yes. L.A. will extend its coastal coverage southward as far as Colombia. And to balance that, our reach now extends to San Francisco--"

"That's bullshit! The farther our Jaegers have to travel, the slower our response time will be!"

"Tell me something I don't know," Charles snapped. "I don't set policy, Erik, I just have to implement it. The Marshall isn't any happier about this than you are."

Erik pounded his fist against a wall, frustrated. "How can we be aggressive enough to win this damn war if we don't have enough Shatterdomes to do the work?"

"We can't," Charles sighed. "We can't afford to just throw everything at every single individual Kaiju. We have to be more cautious with our resources."

"Cautious! That's a joke. I know you always prefer running defense, but even you have to see that we're losing!"

Charles pinched the bridge of his nose, grimacing. "Jaegers are being destroyed faster than they can be built--"

Erik's eyes narrowed. "And whose fault is that?"

It felt like a physical punch to the gut. "I beg your pardon?"

"You're throwing mediocre pilots into Jaegers just because they happen to vibe with one another, they can't tell their asses from their elbows in the field, and then they get shanked by a Kaiju on their first drop while you hang back playing your precious _defense_ and prioritize preventing property damage over the lives of your fellow Rangers--"

"And how exactly are you qualified to judge a pilot?" Charles asked icily. " _You_ certainly aren't one."

Erik reeled back, his face flushing. "I may not have a Jaeger, but at least I don't rely on my baby sister to fight my battles for me. Raven's the only true pilot in the _Professor Mystique_. You're just holding her back, and getting other Jaegers _killed_ while you hesitate! What makes you so goddamn special in the Drift, Charles? What the hell are you even good for?"

That was when the alarm blared across the base. Kaiju, category four, already two hundred miles off the coast of Washington state and approaching fast. _Professor Mystique_ launched within twenty minutes, airlifted to Seattle, while Erik's furious words still echoed in Charles's ears.

That was the last time he ever piloted a Jaeger. He woke up in a hospital in England nearly seven months later to a teary-eyed Raven at his bedside, no feeling below his waist, and the news that all but the Hong Kong Shatterdome had been shut down. He never heard from Erik again.

* * *

Until now, apparently.

"Erik," he says evenly. "This is a surprise."

Erik gives him the faintest of smiles. "Be honest. Would you have let me in if I'd given you advance warning?"

Charles huffs out a reluctant laugh. "Well, I suppose now we'll never know for sure." He nods toward the empty chair, and after a moment's hesitation, Erik takes the offered seat. "All right. So you're here. Why?"

"I'm assuming it hasn't escaped your notice that the Kaiju are back," Erik says drily. "Where else would I be?"

"You want to reenlist."

Erik lifts an eyebrow. "What I _want_ is to rip one of those monsters apart with my bare hands. Since that's not possible, I'll settle for using a giant robot as my proxy." When Charles just regards him steadily, he shrugs. "What do you want me to say, Charles? What will convince you? We can review my resume if it makes you feel better--"

"I don't need to look at your bloody CV," Charles says. "It doesn't matter what you've been doing in the past decade. You're an engineer, you know the Kaiju, I'd be an idiot not to snap you back up. There's a place for you in J-Tech regardless." He leans forward on his elbows. "But you want a Jaeger. What makes you think you'll have any more luck finding a compatible copilot this time around?"

Erik presses his lips together into a flat line, his gaze flickering toward the wheelchair for the first time, just for a heartbeat. When he meets Charles's eyes again, there's somewhat almost rueful in them. "Because the _Professor Mystique_ still needs a second pilot, doesn't she?"

Ten years. Charles really thought he'd put his anger behind him in all that time. He's certainly moved past it. But something hot and bitter flares up in his chest, tastes acrid on his tongue. "You always did want to be Raven's copilot."

"Not really," Erik says, oddly gentle, almost apologetic. "Not the way you're thinking. But you know there's a good chance she and I would be Drift compatible."

The hell of it is, he's right. It's not a sure thing, but if it weren't for their...history, Charles wouldn't have thought twice before trying them out together. And he's the Marshall now. He can't allow pettiness to cloud his judgement. "It's certainly worth a shot," he sighs, letting his anger deflate and sink away. He's always had a talent for compartmentalizing his emotions. "Assuming she's willing."

"Of course." He even manages to sound sincere. Well, maybe he is. Erik and Raven had always gotten on well enough, before.

"And you'll abide by my decision either way?" Charles presses. "If the neural handshake with Raven fails--"

"It won't," Erik vows. The years haven't mellowed him, exactly, but he does seems more focused now. Honed, sharpened, centered. He has all the confidence Charles remembers, but he's not as aggressive about it. He no longer acts like he's got something to prove. "And you're welcome to put me to work in J-Tech as well."

"Fine." Charles waves a dismissive hand, making a show of returning to his paperwork. "Jean will help get you situated. I'm sure she has a stack of forms for you to fill out as well."

After a moment, Erik gets to his feet. He hesitates there, which is so uncharacteristic of him that Charles looks back up in spite of himself. There's something unreadable in Erik's pale eyes. "Charles," he says quietly. "I…" He shakes his head. "I appreciate that you were willing to see me."

Charles gets the impression that he'd meant to say somewhat else, but can't begin to guess what that might have been. He shrugs and keeps his voice steady. "It's been ten years. I don't see any purpose in holding a grudge. Frankly, we need all the help we can get if we want to win this war." 

Erik nods. He pauses again, then turns to go.

"Wait," Charles says, on impulse. "Erik...why come _here_? Why not join Pentecost's crew in Tokyo? They're the ones planning the offensive against the Kaiju. We're just the B-team."

Erik turns back, a faint smile playing at the edges of his mouth. He's not quite looking at him. "Because if you're in charge, Charles, it's not the B-team."

After Erik leaves, it takes Charles longer than he'd like to admit before he's able to refocus on his paperwork.

* * *

Raven swings by his office about two hours later. She immediately drops down into the chair and props her feet up on his desk, as per usual.

"Jean says you've got a new pilot candidate for me," she says by way of introduction. "Where'd you dig this one up?"

"He came to us, actually," Charles says, trying to gauge her mood. This is in fact a conversation they need to have. May as well lean into it. "Wanted to reenlist. I saw no reason to turn him away."

Raven perks up a bit. "Reenlist? So he's from the first war. Which Shatterdome?"

"This one, as it happens."

She hums a little, tapping her fingers on the arm of the chair. "Someone we knew, then?"

"You could say that."

Something in his tone must tip her off. Raven's eyes narrow. "His _name_ , Charles."

"Erik Lehnsherr."

That actually manages to stun her into silence for a few blessed moments. Then the color rises in her cheeks and her feet thud heavily onto the floor. "You have got to be fucking kidding me."

"He was always an extremely promising candidate," Charles points out. "Excellent scores on the sims, and you two got on well enough--"

"We're talking about the same Erik Lehnsherr, right? The guy you used to fuck all over base despite his being a raging asshole, who then proceeded to completely break your heart--"

"Whatever relationship he and I once had bears absolutely no relevance to the current situation," Charles says stiffly.

"You were paralyzed, and he just fucking _ghosted_ on you!"

Charles sighs, rubbing his temples. "They shut down Anchorage and reassigned him to Hong Kong while I was...asleep. _You_ told me that at the time. It's not like he had any say in the matter."

Raven folds her arms across her chest, glaring at him. "Like anyone could ever make Erik do anything. If he'd wanted to see you, no military force in the world could have stopped him. And he could have called, he could have checked in on you in literally any other way--"

"Raven, don't," Charles says, and maybe she can hear the weariness in his tone, because her mouth snaps shut. "He didn't owe me anything. It wasn't like that between us."

"Maybe not for him," she retorts, more gently than he would have expected. "But it was for you. You can lie to yourself all you want, Charles, but I was in your head. I know how you felt about him."

Charles just shrugs. "It was a long time ago. And I'm not the one who'll be Drifting with him. So are you willing to give it a try or not?"

For a long moment, there's a chance that _Raven_ will be the one to reject Erik outright out of pure spite. But she's just as desperate to find a compatible copilot as he is, and in the end, practicality wins out. "Fine," she says. "But only if I get to kick his ass all over the Kwoon combat room first."

"By all means," Charles agrees. He gives her a wry smile. "And feel free to get a few licks in on my behalf while you're at it."

Raven grins and salutes.

* * *

She doesn't actually kick Erik's ass all over the combat training room. The deeply irritating part, Charles thinks, is that they're actually well-matched. Erik is physically stronger, with greater reach, but Raven counters him with her speed and flexibility. They both fight with a fluid aggression that gives no quarter. Watching them spar is...enthralling.

"Is it too late to change my mind about being her copilot?" Hank asks him in a low tone. "Because this is gonna be way worse."

Raven manages to knock Erik flat on his back in a twisting attack that briefly involves her thighs around his waist. The expression on her face is pure animosity, and Erik gives her a sharklike smile, but there's an undeniable connection between them, like a live wire. "She _really_ dislikes him," Charles tries, trying to be supportive.

Hank winces. "I don't think that matters very much. Didn't she show up naked in his bunk once, back in the day?"

"That was on a dare!"

"So I've been told." Hank watches Erik retaliate with a move that brings their bodies flush together for a moment, staffs interlocked. "But still, did it _have_ to be Lehnsherr?"

Charles's mouth twists into a sardonic smile. "Believe me, I don't like it any more than you do. But they're almost certainly Drift compatible. And she needs a copilot."

"Well, there's still the neural handshake," Hank mutters. "That might yet fail miserably."

Raven and Erik's fight ends in a stalemate, each with the end of their staff kissing the other's neck, breathing heavily.

"This is why I keep you around, Hank," Charles says with a sigh. "Your optimism."

* * *

The neural handshake...doesn't quite go as expected.

In all honesty, Charles didn't really know _what_ to expect. It's Raven's sixth attempt with a potential copilot since they reopened the Anchorage base. Of those first five attempts: two failed to calibrate with the Drift at all, one -- Armando -- had succeeded in calibration, but hadn't managed to synchronize well enough together to control their Jaeger; and two had ended badly. They called it _chasing the rabbit_ , when a pilot latched on to a single memory so strongly that they could no longer distinguish it from reality. Nine times out of ten, that would destabilize the shared Drift and kick their copilot out entirely, which also took the Jaeger offline as a failsafe mechanism. If the pilots were sufficiently compatible, however, their copilot might be pulled down the rabbit hole right along with them -- which could be truly disastrous. Strong emotions evoked from a memory could translate into physical actions for the Jaeger itself, and an uncontrolled Jaeger can wreak all manner of havoc.

Neither of Raven's worst attempts had truly been that terrible. Once, her potential copilot had begun chasing the rabbit, but Raven immediately disconnected and took the Jaeger offline before the command center even realized it was happening. The other time, Raven herself had slipped down the rabbit hole, but she'd managed to yank herself back out of it (and out of the Drift entirely) in time. She'd been drained and shaky afterward, though -- she'd _never_ chased the rabbit herself before, not once, not in all the years she and Charles had Drifted together. Charles still doesn't know what memory she'd latched onto so strongly. She refused to speak of it, and the other candidate hadn't glimpsed enough to explain it either.

He's fairly certain that she and Erik will succeed in calibrating with the Drift. Beyond that, though, anything might happen. Including a perfectly successful handshake, he supposes.

What happens is very nearly a success, but not quite. The computerized voice informs the command center that both hemispheres have calibrated. The Jaeger goes fully online with the activation of the Drift. There are no blaring alarms, and all the displays present completely normal readouts. The arms of the Jaeger move into the traditional "handshake" to indicate a successful neural bridge -- one palm of the massive robot splayed open, the other curled into a fist, the two meeting together. And then the Jaeger quietly powers back down, unprompted, as though it had never gone online at all.

"What," Charles says blankly, squinting at the command center monitors.

"Huh," Hank agrees.

They look at one another, baffled.

After a few long minutes of complete silence, Erik's dry voice is heard over the comm link. "Is anyone going to help us get out of this thing, or what?"

* * *

"I don't _know_ ," Raven tells him, exasperated. "I thought it was going fine! Steady Drift, both of us kept our minds clear, nothing to write home about, and then -- bam. Nothing. Like having a door slammed in my face." She wrinkles her nose. "Maybe this Jaeger just doesn't like me. I miss the old _Professor Mystique_."

"You still haven't come up with a name for this one," Charles remarks, distracted, as he reviews the data readouts from the attempted handshake in a futile attempt to figure out what had gone wrong. "Maybe she resents you for it."

Raven laughs shortly. "I believe it. Just seems like bad luck, naming her before I'm sure she's really mine."

At that, Charles does look up at her, catching and holding her gaze. "She will be, Raven. With or without Erik."

"Yeah, well, this is still the closest I've gotten so far," Raven says grimly. "So maybe you should talk to _him_ about it. You're the Drift whisperer, right?"

First, though, he goes back to Hank and the rest of J-Tech, who are swarming over the unnamed Jaeger with determination, just as confused as the command center.

"Something wrong with the tech itself?" Charles suggests. It's unlikely, but not unheard of, and most of Hank's team are relatively new to the traditional Jaeger models. Their design had evolved into something akin to drone technology in the decade since the first war ended -- far smaller and simpler automated bots rather than the two-pilot configuration required to fight actual Kaiju. "A glitch in the activation sequence, or…?"

Hank shrugs helplessly. "I'm kind of hoping that's the case, but we haven't been able to find anything wrong with it so far. It might just be a compatibility issue between the two of them."

"They _did_ complete the handshake," Charles points out. He drums his fingers on the arms of his chair. "If they were compatible enough to synchronize..."

"You know," Hank says, lowering his voice, "we always knew there was a chance you might need to mediate. I do think Cerebro's at a point where we could try--"

Charles shakes his head to cut him off. "Not yet. Raven has been very clear on that point. She doesn't want me in her head."

"But if she can't maintain a neural bridge--"

"We're not there yet, Hank," Charles says firmly. "And the problem could still lie somewhere in the Jaeger itself. What's the next step, if your engineers can't find anything?"

Hank sighs, but doesn't argue further. "Testing it out with a successful Drift compatible pair. I'll get Armando and Alex into it later today, see what happens."

"I imagine they'll have no problem," Erik says from behind them. Hank actually jumps at his voice. Charles imagines the chair is the only thing saving him from a similar indignity. He turns to meet Erik's eyes, which are gunmetal gray. "Marshall Xavier, a word?"

Hank tenses at his side -- it's always worrisome when Erik exhibits any outward deference to rank -- but Charles simply nods. He can't put this off forever. "My office."

He turns and wheels away without waiting for Erik's response. His office is on a different level of the base than the Jaeger floor; he half hopes that Erik will just take the stairs rather than wait with him for the ponderously slow lift. No such luck. The silence stretches out awkwardly between them as the lift labors its way up the levels. 

"I don't think Hank likes me very much," Erik remarks, finally breaking it.

Charles shrugs. "Well, he's dating Raven, you're Drifting with her -- it's bound to be somewhat uncomfortable for him."

"Hank and Raven? Really?" It startles Erik into a genuine laugh. "I didn't know he had it in him."

"You didn't realize?" Charles asks as the lift door opens. "That tends to be the sort of thing one glimpses in the Drift. Did you know, psychologists claim that embarrassment based on sexual memories is the primary reason most pilot candidates fail to sync? Raven certainly used to complain enough about it when -- well."

Erik gives him a flicker of a smile, gone before it has a chance to settle. "I didn't glimpse a damn thing in that Drift. That's what we need to discuss."

Charles holds up a finger, forestalling him until they can get behind closed doors. He does _not_ want any gossip about Raven's inability to Drift properly to spread around the base.

No aides in sight when he reaches his office, which isn't terribly unusual. Both Jean and Scott are also pilot candidates with sims to run, and Charles considers himself fairly low maintenance, as commanding officers go.

"All right," he says, once he's at his desk and the door shuts behind them. "What happened in the Drift?"

Erik opts to remain standing, likely so that he can pace the room as the spirit moves him. "Getting the hemispheres calibrated was no problem. But the neural bridge…" He shakes his head, grimacing. "Bridge to fucking nowhere."

"I don't think I follow. You completed the handshake…"

"Oh, we synchronized well enough," Erik agrees. "But that woman does not know how to _share_." He does indeed start pacing back and forth in front of the desk. Apparently Charles still knows him that well, at least. "You once told me my mind was like a maelstrom, that I kept kicking other people out of Drifting with me."

Charles nods slowly, remembering. "And that's what it felt like with Raven? She tossed you back out again?"

"In order to get tossed out, you have to be let _in_ in the first place," Erik says. "It felt like running up against a steel wall. I could go so far, but no further. We could coordinate well enough to do a handshake, but it was too shallow a connection to maintain. I wasn't exaggerating when I said I didn't glimpse a damn thing. Not a single flicker of memory, not a hint of emotion. I know the best pilots are supposed to be able to clear their minds of thought entirely, to truly inhabit the Jaeger, but there's a difference between keeping a clear head and just...a blank slate."

"Raven said it felt like a door slamming shut in her face," Charles murmurs.

Erik shrugs restlessly. "If so, she was the one doing the slamming. She may not even have realized it."

Charles considers it, gazing out at nothing in particular. "It all comes down to trust, doesn't it?" he remarks quietly. "Trust is the single most crucial component of Drift compatibility. It's why strangers have so much more difficulty forging that bond."

"Raven and I aren't strangers, though," Erik says, his frustration apparent. "Why wouldn't she trust me?"

At that, Charles can't help but laugh, the sound sharp and mirthless. He looks up to meet Erik's eyes in disbelief. "Seriously? You can't imagine why _my sister_ might have trouble trusting you?"

Erik stills at last. He regards Charles for a long moment, his expression unreadable. "Obviously you and I have...history. And I'm not going to pretend I have no regrets. But that was a long time ago, and whatever disagreements we may have had are between _us_. They're nothing to do with Raven."

Charles just shakes his head. "There are times I forget you've never truly Drifted with another person," he says, not unkindly. "You just don't get it yet. Raven and I were in each other's minds for _years_. We shared each other's memories, felt what the other felt. We try to leave those experiences in the Drift, but it's impossible to compartmentalize like that." He looks down at his hands, clasped together on the desk. "You know, Erik, sometimes I think Raven understood our relationship better than I ever did."

Silence falls heavily between them. A few notifications from J-Tech pop up on Charles's computer monitor; he ignores them. If anything was truly urgent, Hank would already be at his door himself.

"So how do we move forward from here?" Erik finally asks. There's something raw and honest in his tone, with none of his usual sardonic flippancy. As though it's a genuine question.

Charles can't quite bring himself to meet his eyes. "I think that's between you and Raven, now. You're the one who needs to Drift with her. You figure it out." He does look up, then, keeping his face impassive. "Do I need to make it an order?"

"That won't be necessary," Erik says quietly. "Sir."

* * *

He refuses to let himself dwell on the issue for the next couple of days. There are any number of other matters that require the Marshall's attention, between staffing and J-Tech and all the various mind-numbing ins and outs of running a Shatterdome. One call with PPDC headquarters alone takes nearly six hours out of his day; their scientists are refining scanners that should identify any new potential Breach in the Pacific Ocean. So far, so good; the Kaiju apparently haven't found another way back into this world yet. But after the attack on Tokyo earlier in the year, no one's quite ready to breathe easy.

The Shatterdomes used to have massive countdown clocks that tracked the time between attacks, Charles remembers grimly. He wonders if that's something he ought to reinstate.

Time in general tends to lose all meaning in the insular environment of the base, so Charles isn't sure just when exactly Raven kicks open the door to his office with a bottle of scotch in one hand and tequila in the other. Never a good sign, regardless of the hour, but he's fairly sure it's sometime late in the evening and not, say, ten in the morning, so it could still be worse.

"My bunk, twenty minutes," she tells him, a gimlet gleam in her eye. "We're doing this."

Charles regards the bottles warily. "Doing _what_ , precisely?"

"Me and Erik are gonna solve our compatibility issues the old fashioned way: lots and lots of alcohol. And you're coming too."

Charles can feel his eyebrows elevate roughly to his hairline. "Ah, I'm not sure why you'd want me present for that--"

"Hank will also be there to chaperone," Raven says impatiently. "But we've all got about a decade's worth of shit to work through, and that requires social lubricant. Don't think you're exempt, you might not be Drifting with him but you've still got to _work_ with us."

"And my being both of your commanding officer doesn't make this a colossally bad idea?"

Raven shrugs. "Only if you let it. But we all know rank is pretty fucking meaningless between the four of us, Hank included. We go too far back for that shit. And it's not like we'll have any other witnesses." She looks him over assessingly. "But definitely change out of uniform, that does make it weird."

"Heaven forfend," Charles mutters. "Fine. Twenty minutes."

This is a _terrible_ idea.

* * *

About an hour or so into it, Charles has to concede that maybe it wasn't all that bad of an idea after all. Raven kicked them off with a deck of cards and a drinking game he half-recalled from their Academy days, which turned out to be a surprisingly effective icebreaker. As ridiculous as it might be for a group of thirty-somethings to goad one another into taking shots...well, he's actually having _fun_ , feeling looser and more relaxed than he can easily remember. The simple T-shirt and loose slacks in place of his usual suit and tie definitely help, as does the deliberate informality of Raven's personal quarters, the four of them gathered around its battered card table in mismatched chairs, some kind of pop music playing quietly on an old radio she propped up on her headboard.

Raven and Hank are more casually demonstrative here in private, too, which is comforting to witness. God knows Raven has a tendency to blow hot and cold at times, but they seem to finally be settling into something more cozy, less fraught. They're also definitely playing footsie under the table. At one point, Hank chokes on his drink a propos of absolutely nothing while Raven looks very, very smug. Charles covers a grin with a sip of his own scotch, and glances over to see Erik looking right back at him, sharing the amusement. It sets something warm and soft unfurling in his chest. He doesn't want to examine the feeling too closely, but eases into it all the same.

"All right," Raven says, neatly scooping the cards back into their case. "Lightning round for the Drift partners. Truth or dare, just me and you, Erik. Hank and Charles can referee. Except we're all respectable members of society now, so instead of dares, if you choose not to answer truthfully--" She pulls out an unlabeled bottle of clear liquid from under her bunk. "--you take a shot of this truly shittastic vodka. Like this is the cheapest, most vile crap I could find in all Alaska, and believe me, they know their terrible booze."

Erik, who has always been a bit of a snob when it comes to liquor, eyes his half-empty glass of tolerable scotch mournfully. So Charles deftly removes it from his reach. After a moment's consideration, he finishes it off himself instead, tossing his head back, and does his best not to notice the way Erik's gaze lingers on his throat.

Raven grins, teeth flashing. "Gotta give you incentive. If you _do_ answer, then I take the shot instead. And vice versa, of course."

"How exactly are we supposed to referee?" Hank demands. Due to a deeply unfair quirk of genetics, he holds his liquor better than pretty much anyone Charles has ever met, and only appears vaguely buzzed. Charles himself is riding the just-tipsy edge of drunk by virtue of alternating every glass of scotch with an equal portion of water. Neither Erik nor Raven are bothering to restrain themselves, but they're still well aware that they aren't twenty anymore, and no one's courting alcohol poisoning tonight.

"Just keep us honest. Anyone caught lying has to take two shots instead."

Hank sighs. "This should be fun."

Erik's eyes flicker to Charles's, just for a heartbeat, and there's something almost...uncertain, there. It sends a frisson up Charles's spine, a warning note. "You're sure this is a good idea, Raven?" Charles asks.

But Raven just pours out two shots and sets them down, her gaze never leaving Erik's face. "You want me to trust him enough to try another handshake with him tomorrow? He needs to earn it."

Erik leans forward on his elbows. "Fine. Why not?" He contemplates the shot glass for a moment, then asks, "Why did you originally decide to join the Corps?"

It's a softball question to start, and Charles appreciates that. Some of the tension in Raven's shoulders eases slightly; she knew she was tweaking the tiger's tail. But she's right. They do need to learn to trust each other. "All the cool kids were doing it," she says with a shrug. "Recruiters came to our high school with aptitude tests, and Charles and I ranked pretty high on potential compatibility, so we figured, why not?" She nods at Erik's shot. "Drink."

Erik does, grimacing. It must taste as vile as advertised. "Your turn."

"What about you, then? Why join up?"

"My parents were killed by Kaiju," he replies. Which Charles already knew, and he's pretty sure Raven did, too. So she's not going for the jugular yet. She takes her shot without complaint.

Hank regards them both narrowly as Raven refills the shot glasses. "You know, if someone has to drink with every single question, this could get ugly pretty fast."

"I cut the bottle with tap water," Raven says blithely. "We'll be fine."

"It definitely didn't improve the flavor," Erik grumbles. He glances at Hank, then grins in a manner Charles definitely doesn't trust. "Next question. Is Hank as pedantic in bed as he is out of it?" 

"Foul!" Hank snaps, as Raven snorts with laughter. "Any answer she gives would be a subjective opinion, not an objective truth."

"I think you just answered for her," Charles murmurs, as Raven's giggles verge on hysterics.

"How about this," Erik suggests magnanimously. "If either _referee_ chooses to disqualify a question before it can be answered, _he_ has to take the shot."

Hank glares at him, but he does down the shot in Raven's glass without further protest.

"So we'll have to use our veto power wisely," Charles advises, trying to suppress a smile. Erik flashes that quicksilver grin at him, and the warmth in his chest starts to tingle outward. It's damnably unfair of him to still look so _good_ after all these years. 

"My turn," Raven says, still chuckling a little.

"No, hold on, mine had to be rescinded--"

"And that means you forfeit the round, or else you'd just keep asking unfair questions to get Charles and Hank drunk without penalty," she retorts. "I do know you, Lehnsherr."

Erik inclines his head, conceding the point.

"Do _you_ have a significant other tucked away somewhere?" she asks. When his eyes narrow at her, she raises her hands in placation. "Genuine question! If I might stumble across any sexytimes in the Drift, I'd rather be forewarned. You know about Hank."

"Fair enough," Erik says grudgingly. He very much does not look at Charles. "No. Not in some time. Which doesn't mean you _won't_ glimpse any...awkward memories."

"Yeah, obviously, it's always a risk," Raven agrees, downing her shot and refilling it. "But at least there won't be anything super recent or vivid to worry about. On your end, anyway."

Hank hunches his shoulders forward with a groan, his cheeks burning a becoming shade of pink. Charles just shakes his head. At least she should already be enured to any such memories involving him and Erik, from the first war. You quickly learn to politely ignore that sort of thing in the Drift.

The pair of them continue on in that manner for several more rounds, keeping it surprisingly collegial throughout. There's only one truth Raven chooses to opt out of and take the shot instead, about a particularly nasty Kaiju they'd encountered during the first war, and from the expression on Erik's face, he genuinely hadn't anticipated how fraught his question would be. He leans into more frivolous questions for his next couple of turns, as if in apology.

But invariably, _in vino veritas_ , and as the vodka kicks in, the questions become more pointed.

"Why haven't you given up yet?" Erik asks -- not cruelly, but it's rather stark all the same. "It's been ten years since you last piloted a Jaeger, and after six different candidates getting as far as the handshake and then failing -- aren't you exhausted?"

"And how many potential copilots did _you_ fail with, during the first war?" Raven shoots back reflexively.

"I only got to the handshake with three, but maybe that's why I'm asking," Erik says, with more honesty than Charles would have expected. The alcohol must really be hitting him. "God knows _I_ considered throwing in the towel, more than once."

Hank glances nervously at Charles. "Maybe we should veto this one--"

"Because I need to be there," Raven says, talking over him, face flushing. "Because I belong in a Jaeger. Because after you've been a Ranger, nothing else compares. Because the Kaiju are coming back and I'm better at fighting them than literally anyone else in the world, and it's what I need to be doing."

Erik nods thoughtfully, and toasts her with his next shot. There's a new respect in his eyes when he looks at her. It makes Charles's throat ache a little.

"My turn." Raven's expression settles into something hard, a little ruthless, and Charles knows what she's going to ask but somehow can't find his voice in time to prevent it. "Ten years ago, after _Professor Mystique_ fell. Why did you never check up on us? On Charles?"

"Raven," Charles manages, her name feeling like it's scraping along his throat. He can't bring himself to so much as glance in Erik's direction. "Veto. Foul. Whatever we're calling it. Give me the vodka."

"Don't you dare." Her eyes glitter like fire. "If I'm ever gonna let him into my head, I need to know."

"It's frankly none of your business--"

"He _left_ you, Charles!" she snaps. "You nearly died, and he should have been there, and he _wasn't_. It is absolutely my goddamn business, because I was the one who had to pick up the pieces!" Raven slams her hands on the rickety table, making the vodka slosh a little, and turns the full force of her glare on Erik. "And if _Charles_ was that fucking disposable to you, why wouldn't I be, too?"

"He wasn't," Erik says. His voice remains low and even, and he meets Raven's furious gaze without flinching. "He isn't. Nor are you."

Charles stares down at the empty tumbler in his hands as though it contains all the secrets of the universe. Or perhaps an alien portal to the Kaiju homeworld, which honestly sounds more relaxing than this evening has abruptly become.

"Then _why_?" Raven demands. "Why did you ghost on him?"

"Because I honestly believed he wanted nothing to do with me ever again," Erik says quietly.

Silence follows briefly in his wake. Hank fidgets, clearly wanting to be anywhere else in the universe right now, and Charles still can't bring himself to look up from the table. He's not even angry anymore, at Erik or Raven or anything else. He's just _tired_.

Finally, Raven stirs, gulping her shot and dropping the empty glass down with a heavy thud. "Then you obviously never knew Charles at all."

Charles shakes his head slowly, forcing himself to look at her. He still doesn't want to know what expression lurks in Erik's pale eyes, but Raven he can manage. "We'd...quarrelled," he explains, hating himself a little for the instinct to defend Erik's behavior, apparently still alive and kicking even after all this time. "Right before the last Kaiju fight."

"I know," she says, her tone a tangled mixture of exasperation and fondness. "I was in your head, remember? You two used to treat arguments like foreplay."

"Not this one," Erik murmurs. "It got ugly."

"I _know_ ," Raven repeats, far more sharply this time. "So fucking what? And don't you even get started with me, Charles, I don't care what words you did or didn't use to describe your relationship." She gets to her feet, one hand going to her hip, the other pointing squarely at Charles. "He would have died for you," she tells Erik, practically biting the words out. "He nearly did, trying to prove himself to you. And you fucking owed him better."

If it takes Erik aback, only a flicker of it is visible, passing across his face in an eyeblink. "You're right. I did."

Raven frowns, eyes narrowing, clearly derailed from her rant by his unexpected acquiescence. "Well...okay, then."

"I think we should call it a night," Charles says, pushing himself clear of the table. "Or, well, I certainly am. But by all means, you two should feel free to keep discussing me as though I'm not here once I'm, you know. No longer here."

Raven glares at both him and Erik indiscriminately, clearly unembarrassed, but Erik has the grace to look vaguely abashed. He gets to his feet with only the slightest hint of unsteadiness to show for the quantity of alcohol he consumed. "No, I think you're right, Charles. This has been an...enlightening evening." He nods to Raven, somewhat warily. "Raven."

She snorts and flops down onto her bunk, rolling onto her stomach so that she can't look at them.

As they make their way out into the hallway, Hank says quietly, "I'm staying with her tonight."

"Good," Charles sighs. "And good luck."

Hank gives him a wry smile and closes the door behind them.

Which leaves Charles alone with Erik in the corridor, wishing very much not to be. "Well, good night," he says, with as much authority as he can muster.

No such luck, of course. "Wait," Erik says, resting a hand on the back of Charles's chair. He's not actually holding on, though. Charles could pull away if he so chose. "What did she mean by that last bit? About...proving yourself to me?"

"It's nothing," Charles says wearily. "Just an old argument between us."

"Charles--"

"Leave it," he says, a little more forcefully than he'd intended. "Erik, it was a long time ago. It doesn't matter. And I've already got a headache from the damn scotch, so I'd really rather not hash out ancient history right this very minute. If ever."

Erik just looks down at him, expression unreadable again. Damn it all to hell, Charles used to be able to read Erik's tells, but he's clearly improved his poker face in the past ten years. Or maybe he really just doesn't care. "All right," he says quietly. "Good night, Charles."

There's something...soft, almost, in the curl of Erik's voice around his name. Charles regards him for a long moment, studying his face carefully, not even sure what he's searching for. Whatever it might be, he doesn't find it. So Charles just wheels away, heading for his own bunk.

He glances back just once as he turns the corner. Erik is still standing motionless in the middle of the hall, hands shoved into his pockets, staring out at nothing in particular.

* * *

After the way the night ended, Charles more than half expects Raven to call off the second Drift attempt. But to his surprise, she shows up as scheduled at 1500 the next afternoon, expression set and determined.

"You still want to go through with the neural handshake?" Charles does ask, taking her aside in the command center before she gets into gear. "You're sure?"

"The only thing I'm sure of is that he's still my best bet at a copilot," Raven replies, a little bleakly. "So let's just see what happens."

Charles lifts an eyebrow. "What convinced you?"

Raven shrugs. "He never tried to lie to me. I may not have _liked_ his answer at the end, but at least he was honest about it. It'll have to do."

That doesn't exactly fill him with optimism, but she's not _wrong_ , and it's her decision.

There's no particular reason for him to speak with Erik before the handshake, so he doesn't seek him out, and Erik only stops by the command center for a perfunctory confirmation that he's ready to go before making his way to the Jaeger.

There are a handful more spectators than usual for this attempt. It's the only time Raven has gone for a second try with any candidate, and the other new Rangers -- most of whom she trained herself -- are curious to see if anything will come of it. Armando and Alex lean against the back wall, whispering to each other; the other paired set, Ororo and Kurt, have grabbed spare rolling chairs and elbowed their way to the front window, far enough off to one side that no one can accuse them of being in the way. Charles doesn't mind; there tends to be a bit of healthy rivalry between Jaeger teams, but he knows they all genuinely wish Raven well. And besides, they'll need more than two Jaegers operational before the Kaiju return if they hold any hope of surviving it.

They don't even _have_ two fully operational Jaegers yet, he reminds himself. Ironically, Raven's as-yet-unnamed Jaeger is the only one that's genuinely battle-ready, since they'd been working on it the longest -- she just needs a copilot. Armando and Alex's still requires a few weeks' work before it'll be ready in the field. The only named Jaeger belongs to Ororo and Kurt -- the _Midnight Storm_ \-- and she's...mostly there. Close enough for government work. Charles _could_ deploy her in a pinch, though he'd hate to send out a completely untried Ranger team without backup.

Jean should be ready for her own Jaeger soon, too, he thinks idly, assuming she and Scott turn out to be as compatible as everyone hopes. He'd already tried her with Raven, early on, even though he'd known she wasn't quite ready for it; theirs had been one of the attempts that never synchronized at all.

This one starts off well -- but then, so had Raven and Erik's previous attempt. Still. Both hemispheres calibrate, more quickly than the first time, and then synchronize to bring the Jaeger fully online. The massive arms begin to move into the handshake--

"Shit," Hank says, as the monitors begin flashing red in warning. "Left hemisphere's fallen out of alignment."

That's Erik. Charles can feel his own blood pressure rising in conjunction with the bio alerts. "Is he--"

Hank grimaces, slamming his palm on the desk. "Goddamnit, he's chasing the rabbit. Raven should disconnect--"

But Charles can read the cascading readouts just as well as anyone in J-Tech. "She can't. She's followed him down. _Damn._ Shut it down, Hank."

"Working on it," Hank grits out, fingers flashing across the keyboard.

This is unfortunately followed by the telltale resonant humming sound of a Jaeger thruster cannon powering up.

"Shut it down _now_!"

Charles had heard tell of a similarly disastrous handshake, at the end of the first war. The Jaeger had very nearly fired full blast on the command center before someone managed to physically pull the plug on the main power line. That was a decade ago, though; J-Tech has learned from past mistakes. Hank has a failsafe that should prevent that sort of fiasco.

And it does, well before anything truly calamitous can occur. The problem is that yanking the Jaeger completely offline with both pilots active in the Drift...well, it's not advisable. Charles knows precisely what it feels like to have one's Jaeger lose power mid-Drift. The ensuing migraine was the least of it.

The command center is very quiet in the wake of the failed handshake, as the Jaeger peaceably powers itself down. Charles can already see techs swarming across the floor below toward the Jaeger, and likely others are breaking into the conn-pod to get Raven and Erik out of their gear and assess the damage.

His knuckles are white as they grip the arms of his chair. He rarely gives much thought to his physical disability, hasn't in years, but right now, he _badly_ needs to be in that Jaeger himself, needs to be there for his sister and Erik, to make sure that they're all right, and he _can't_. It's not fucking _accessible_. 

Logically, Charles knows that both of them are physically fine. Mentally, though...well, it depends. What memory had sucked Erik down the rabbit hole? What trauma had he been reliving? (It was always trauma that did it -- no one ever chased the rabbit to relive a peaceful afternoon tea party, more's the pity.) How deeply had they both been entwined in the Drift when it got shut down?

The very first Jaeger pilots had been so overwhelmed by the Drift that it broke them, mentally. Overloaded their brains to the point of physical trauma. That was why _two_ pilots were the solution for navigating the Drift. A burden shared is a burden halved. But it could still just be...too much.

Hank glances over at him, face drawn and pale, and nods jerkily. "Come on. Let's get as close as we can, anyway."

Fear is a bitter taste in the back of Charles's throat as he and Hank make their rapid way to the staging area between base and Jaeger conn-pod. By the time they get up there -- Christ Almighty, Charles is going to lose years of his life to these damnably slow lifts -- aides have already helped the copilots out of the conn-pod and are carefully assisting them in the removal of the drivesuits.

"Was it worth it?" Raven is demanding furiously, her face white as chalk. "Are you _happy_ now?"

Erik doesn't respond. He's leaning against a wall, one arm braced, like it's the only thing holding him up at the moment, while someone pries the last section of the drivesuit off him. There's a sickly cast to his features. When he notices Charles at the doorway, all the remaining color leeches from his face.

"What _happened_?" Charles asks. It comes out more gently than he'd expected.

Raven lets out a sound almost like a sob, and pretty much throws herself at him in an uncoordinated hug. The momentum pushes his chair backward, though fortunately Hank is already there to catch and brace it. Likely rolled over his toes, Charles thinks, but he doesn't pay it much mind, caught up in a lapful of Raven. Her chin is sharp against his shoulder. She's not actually crying, but she trembles in his arms, and he remembers how shaky and miserable she'd been the last time she'd chased the rabbit, too.

"You're all right," he murmurs into her hair. "You'll be all right. It was just a memory."

"I know. Just… _fuck_." She lets out a shuddering sigh, then drags herself to her feet, scrubbing a hand across her face. Hank steps in to slip an arm around her waist, and she leans against him gratefully. "Sorry. It's just...it's like I'm still stuck in it. Fuck. Whatever, I'm fine, I'm fine. Erik--"

When she looks for him, Charles does as well, but Erik is already gone. "He bolted," Hank confirms. "Probably needed to be sick, he was looking pretty green around the gills. That can happen after a bad Drift."

Charles winces. He's been there himself.

"Serves him right," Raven mutters. She's still too pale herself, though, and after exchanging a quick glance with Charles, Hank helps her to a seat. A quiet order from Charles clears the room of the remaining techs, giving her the space and privacy she needs.

He moves to place himself beside her, not too close, but near enough if she wants to reach out to him. "It's not anyone's fault," he says quietly. "Navigating the Drift, especially in those first moments of synchronization -- it's almost entirely subconscious. It's all too easy to latch onto the wrong memory at the wrong moment."

Which is why any potential Rangers must develop strong mental discipline, or they wash out well before being allowed anywhere near a Jaeger. Still, anyone can have a bad day.

"I know." Raven grimaces. "It was just...intense."

"Knowing Erik, I can only imagine," Charles says ruefully. "I'm honestly surprised he's never chased the rabbit before now, given his history. Are you comfortable sharing what the memory was about? His parents?"

It's what Charles would assume -- the Kaiju attack that had killed Erik's parents. He's fairly certain Erik had witnessed their deaths, from the way he'd spoken of it in the past; reliving that would certainly be enough to leave anyone feeling ill. Charles's own stomach lurches a bit in sympathy.

But Raven is shaking her head. "No -- you don't get it. It wasn't _his_ memory that he chased. It was mine." She laughs, a little hysterically. "You did want me to let him in my head, right?"

Charles absorbs this, breathing into it. It's not unheard of to get lost in your copilot's memories rather than your own, but far less common -- without that personal emotional connection to the flash of memory, you're just not likely to latch onto it. It certainly confirms that Raven and Erik are Drift compatible, though. Silver lining, Charles supposes distantly. "Which memory was it, Raven?"

"What do you _think_ , Charles?" Raven sighs. "The worst moment of my freaking life, what else? Our last Kaiju fight. When _Professor Mystique_ was destroyed around us."

* * *

They used to play chess.

There aren't many sources of entertainment in a Shatterdome, and during the first war, everyone had to be ready for deployment at pretty much any time. So everyone found their own ways to pass the time in off-hours. The rec room just off the mess included a battered stack of board games, and there were a few different mismatched chess sets in the collection. At some point Charles and Erik realized they both knew how to play, and it was a decent way to get in the mindset for battle strategy, so they got into the vague habit of playing from time to time. Neither had a particular talent for it, but they were fairly well-matched, and it was...fun.

Erik used to complain that Charles played chess like he piloted a Jaeger: shrewdly, but too defensively. He wasted too much time considering all possible moves instead of taking decisive action. Charles liked to point out that while Erik's rash strategies did win him the match as often as not, in an actual battle, one couldn't recklessly sacrifice lives the way he did chess pieces. They never did resolve that argument.

Well. Obviously, given how they'd parted.

Charles is tired of playing defense. He's spent his whole life losing this war.

So much of his time since Erik's arrival has been spent _reacting_. To Erik's unexpected appearance in Anchorage, to Raven's moods and needs, to whatever happens between them in the Drift -- all of it out of Charles's control. Some Marshall he's turning out to be.

It's time to play the game like Erik always wanted him to -- decisively.

So after spending the rest of the afternoon cloistered with Hank and Raven, hashing out a plan of action, he makes his way to Erik's personal quarters.

Erik's room is just down the hall from Raven's; all the Rangers and pilot candidates are barracked in the same general area. It hasn't changed much since the first war. The main difference now is that there are far fewer of them, so there's enough space for everyone to have their own room if they so choose. Maybe someday their ranks will swell enough that they'll have to double up again. Charles isn't sure whether or not that will be a good thing.

It's late enough that the corridors are mostly quiet, though not so late that Erik would already be asleep. He's always been a bit of a night owl, anyway. If Charles were being strictly professional about this, he supposes he ought to wait and summon Erik to his office first thing in the morning instead -- but frankly, he doesn't want to put it off. The last thing Erik needs is for his experience in the Drift to fester overnight.

It only takes a moment for Erik to answer his knock. He's dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt -- not that Rangers have any official uniform outside of the Jaeger drivesuit. And he clearly hasn't tried to sleep yet, though there are tired lines etched around the corners of his mouth and eyes. "Charles," he says, not sounding the slightest bit surprised.

"Erik," Charles replies, matching his even tone. "We need to talk about the Drift."

Erik nods. "Here?"

"We can use my office if you'd prefer," Charles says. "Or the mess, or even the Jaeger floor, it makes no difference to me. Wherever you're most comfortable. I do realize you might not want me barging into your personal quarters."

Erik shrugs, though his eyes are shadowed. "Here's as good a place as any, I suppose. Come on in."

He's always been tidy in his personal habits, and this room is just as spartan as the one Charles remembers from ten years ago. There are virtually no personal touches at all, apart from a haphazard stack of books on a shelf and a small travel chess kit visible atop the desk. Charles can't help but smile a little when he sees it.

"So," Erik says, perching on the edge of his neatly made bed. His knee jiggles restlessly. "I imagine Raven told you what happened in the Drift earlier."

"She did," Charles agrees softly. "Are you all right? After seeing all that?"

Erik blinks at him. "You...that's your first question?"

"Of course. Reliving a traumatic memory is still trauma in its own right, even if it's not your own." The disbelief stings a little, he has to admit. "Erik -- do you really think so little of me, that I wouldn't be concerned for you? That I wouldn't care?"

"I could hardly blame you for it, given…" Erik waves his hand vaguely, as though trying to encapsulate the sum of their shared history in a single gesture.

Charles just shakes his head. "Maybe Raven was right when she said you never really knew me at all."

A harsh laugh scrapes out of Erik's throat. "She generally is." He doesn't seem inclined to elaborate further, just staring down at his own clasped hands.

"Well, I do care," Charles sighs. "But I won't press if you'd rather not speak of it. We can discuss next steps instead."

"Next steps?" Erik's head comes up with a jerk, brow furrowed as he stares at Charles. "I assume you're reassigning me to J-Tech, if you intend to keep me on at all." 

"You think I'd toss you out for a bad handshake?" Charles asks incredulously. "Jesus, Erik, even old Stacker Pentecost wouldn't wash out a pilot candidate for chasing the rabbit _once_. We'd hardly have had any Rangers at all if that were the case!"

"It's not just _that_." Erik has gotten to his feet by now, pacing his narrow room, all his coiled energy practically vibrating out of him. "Raven certainly won't be willing to try it again with me--"

"She is, actually," Charles says. "She was rattled and upset, yes, but we've discussed it at length, and she agreed to a plan for the next attempt. Unless…" It hadn't even occurred to him as a possibility before, but: "Do you no longer want to pilot a Jaeger?"

Erik laughs again, disbelieving. "It's all I've ever wanted, you know that. But why does that even matter? I saw Raven's memories, and she was _right_. You nearly got yourself killed because of _me_."

Charles shakes his head reflexively, heart suddenly racing. "That's not--"

"The Drift felt wrong from the very beginning of that last fight," Erik plows on ruthlessly. "She couldn't sink into it properly, everything seemed jagged around the edges, it gave her a headache. You were reckless, aggressive -- she felt like she was being dragged along behind you, all her movements seemed like they were half a second late, and that fucking Kaiju was the worst she'd ever encountered, it seemed _faster_ , smarter--"

"It was our first category four," Charles murmurs. "We were just plain outclassed, Erik, and we had no backup. Yes, it was a disaster from start to finish, but that had nothing to do with--"

"She felt you _die_ , Charles!" Erik comes to a halt right in front of him, bracing himself on the arms of Charles's chair, eyes wild. " _I_ felt you die! She was in your head, she _felt_ it when the Jaeger shattered around you. She felt it snap your spine. She thought it was her own back breaking! And the way the Drift just shorted out in her head -- she thought she was feeling your _death_."

Almost without realizing it, Charles reaches up to clasp Erik's face between his hands, something raw and aching within his chest. "It wasn't, though. I survived it, we both did."

"It was my fault," Erik grits out, breathing hard as though he's just come from a fight of his own. "All that bullshit I used to spout about Raven being the only true pilot -- I goaded you into it, I pushed you too far."

Charles closes his eyes for a moment, feeling the rasp of Erik's stubble under his palms, breathing in the still-familiar warm scent of him. "You said some awful things, and so did I," he finally manages, meeting Erik's stormy gaze without flinching. "And yes, I took some of that anger into the Drift with me. But if I ever blamed you for it, I let go of that long ago. I was responsible for my own actions in that fight. And frankly, it was one we would have lost anyway."

"You don't know that," Erik whispers, bending down to rest his forehead lightly against Charles's.

"Maybe not," Charles concedes. "But there's no use dwelling on theoreticals. It happened. And we're all here now. That's all that matters. It wasn't your _fault_ , Erik."

Erik lets out a quiet, broken sound -- not quite a sigh, not quite anything else -- and closes the remaining distance between them, pressing their lips together.

Charles hasn't really let himself think about it, but _Christ_ , he's missed this. The heat of Erik's mouth on his, the taste of him. One of his hands slips back to cup Erik's neck, tugging him closer, and he can't help but deepen the kiss, arching up into it. The physical element of their relationship had always come naturally to them, instinctively, and he feels a rush of relief that that's still true, despite being ten years older and, well, the rather noticeable change in his mobility. It would be all too easy to sink into this again and forget the mess they'd made of the rest of it.

He breathes into the kiss, lets his fingertips trail down the sides of Erik's neck, then to his shoulders. They tighten there, clinging for a moment. And then he uses that as leverage to gently push Erik away.

"We shouldn't," he says, though he can't keep his own gaze from drifting back to Erik's lips. "Even if it were a good idea, neither of us are exactly thinking clearly right now. I remember what coming out of an emotional Drift felt like--"

"I'm pretty sure this is the first good decision I've made in years," Erik replies, voice rough but direct as ever. It sends a jolt of heat directly to Charles's gut.

He forces himself to ignore his own reaction, pulling back to put some physical space between them. "Not like this," he says. "Erik, please."

In the old days, Erik would probably have lashed out at him, all hurt anger and frustration. But now he just closes his eyes tightly for a moment, breathes in and out, then meets Charles's gaze again. "All right. Not now. But you can't run away from this forever."

And this time, Charles is the one stung by it. "I'm not the one who ran away."

"No," Erik admits, holding himself very still. "You weren't."

Silence stretches between them, not awkward so much as taut, fragile. After a long minute, Erik slowly sinks back down onto his bunk. "Why _did_ you come here tonight, Charles?"

Charles lets out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, allowing some of his hurt to dissipate with it. "Next steps. With Raven. We have a plan for the next attempt."

"Okay," Erik says quietly. "I'm in."

"You should probably hear the details before you agree to anything," Charles warns him, but Erik is already shaking his head.

"I trust you. And Raven. I'll try whatever you've come up with."

Charles is tempted, _so_ tempted, to take him at his word and leave it there. Just to be done for tonight. But that wouldn't be fair to either of them. "It involves me entering the Drift with you both."

At that, Erik frowns, though it looks more curious than anything else. "Is that even possible? I mean, I know there were triplets who piloted together during the war, obviously the the Drift can be shared three ways, but wouldn't you need to be in the Jaeger yourself for that?"

"Hank has developed a remote access point for the Drift -- it just needs to be synchronized with a specific Jaeger." Charles smiles faintly. "He calls it Cerebro. You'll have to pick his brains for the specs if you're interested, I'm not really an engineer myself."

"I'll do that," Erik murmurs. But his eyes are sharp on Charles's. "How would that help, though? Just because you and Raven are compatible…?"

Charles regards him steadily. "You asked me once what made me so special, as a pilot." Erik flinches, opening his mouth to protest, but Charles plows onward. "I have a unique talent for navigating the Drift. I can take on pretty much the entirety of the neural load myself. That's part of what made Raven so effective as a Ranger -- she was free to just _fight_. She hardly had to manage the Drift at all. I was her intermediary. And I should be able to do the same for the pair of you, at least until you're comfortable enough to synchronize without me. Whether that takes five minutes or five years." He smiles crookedly, glancing down at his own knees. "I can't physically operate one hemisphere of the Jaeger, she still needs a copilot for that, but at least my mind's fully operational." 

Erik nods slowly, visibly processing that. "What about compatibility?" he asks, almost hesitant. "What if you and I aren't…?"

"We are," Charles says wryly. "I mean, I'm fairly certain we would be anyway, but as it happens, it's irrelevant. I could Drift with literally anyone. I am universally Drift compatible. _That's_ what I'm good for, Erik."

Erik's jaw works while he stares at Charles, but no sound emerges. Finally, he murmurs, "The old Marshall knew. That was why he always had you testing out all the pilot candidates."

Charles nods. "It gave me a good sense of who would pair up most effectively, yes. Since I could balance any of them, I could assess who might be most compatible with one another."

"If…" Erik cuts himself off, looking away, then continues anyway. "If anything had ever happened to Raven...they would have thrown you right back into a new Jaeger, wouldn't they?"

"With you, most likely," Charles agrees quietly. "But anyone else would also have sufficed. I imagine I might well have ended up in that last Jaeger with Beckett, had I emerged intact from _Professor Mystique_. You think that hasn't been eating away at Raven, all this time?" He shakes his head, with no little bitterness of his own. "Someone actually said it to her face once while I was still unconscious. That it was a shame it had been me paralyzed and not her, because I was more _valuable_." He nearly spits it out, and from the thunderous expression on Erik's face, he's not alone in his lingering anger about _that_ one.

"Fuck," Erik mutters. "No wonder she has trouble letting anyone else in."

Charles inclines his head, folding his hands on his lap to stop them from shaking. "So. Now you know. Are you still willing to give it a try?"

"Yes," Erik says simply, without hesitation. "And you? If you're willing to share the Drift with me -- does that mean you forgive me?"

Charles gives him an arch look. "Did you apologize and I somehow missed it?"

"I suppose not." Erik smiles faintly. "I am sorry, though. If I'd realized--" He cuts himself off, shaking his head ruefully. "No, I probably still would have been a dick about it, then. I couldn't help myself. I was just so _angry_ , all the time, and I had nowhere else to put it."

Charles's mouth twists. "I know. I knew it at the time, too. That's why I let you off the hook so damn often."

"Too often, probably." Erik leans back on his elbows, gaze distant. "It took me a long time to adjust to peace, after. I'd held onto that rage for so long -- it wasn't easy to accept that the war was over even though I'd never gotten the chance to fight in it. But I did come to terms with it. I moved on from my anger. And when the attack on Tokyo happened…"

When he gives no indication that he's going to finish that thought, Charles tries, "You realized you had another chance at it?"

Erik exhales. "No. I realized that my biggest regret from the first war wasn't that I never piloted a Jaeger. It was losing you."

It's very, very difficult not to just grab him and kiss him again. Charles swallows hard and remains motionless, refusing to allow himself the indulgence. "Well," he says, his voice sounding tight and strange even to his own ears. "Let's try Drifting together first. And then...we'll see."

Erik's gaze settles back on him, warm and unexpectedly tender, with the barest hint of sly humor. "Yes, we will."

* * *

Of course, it's not like they're going to jump right back into the Jaeger right away. Both Raven and Erik need a few days to mentally recover from the last attempt, not to mention some quality time with the base psychologist, and there are ruffled feathers to be soothed in both J-Tech and the command center as well. And theirs isn't the only Jaeger in Anchorage. _Midnight Storm_ has a test drop scheduled the following day, which Charles oversees -- it goes very smoothly, thank goodness -- and there's still plenty of work to be done on Armando and Alex's. Not to mention the hours Charles and Hank spend making some final adjustments to Cerebro to ensure it's ready for full integration with the Drift.

In the meantime, Charles does his best to let Raven and Erik form their own rapprochement without interference. He glimpses them deep in conversation in the mess hall at one point, and hears from the combat instructors that they've been sparring together regularly. It's all for the good. Raven checks in with him daily, at least to chat, and she appears more settled in her own skin. Erik, for his part, seems content to give Charles the space he all but explicitly requested. He greets Charles cordially in passing but makes no attempt to press the issue; he watches quietly from the command center during _Midnight Storm_ 's test drop, and shares a few constructive observations with Charles afterward, but doesn't linger beyond the point of professionalism. There's still an electric thrum between them, making Charles hyper aware of Erik's presence when he's nearby, but it's oddly...comfortable. The edge has been smoothed off it, somehow. Charles might still find Erik a bit distracting, but it's almost pleasant rather than an irritation.

He can work with this.

Unfortunately, two days later the universe decides to punish him for his complacency with alarms shrilling all across the Shatterdome shortly after breakfast. It actually takes Charles a solid minute with his hands pressed to his ears, just gaping at the alerts flashing across all the monitors in the command center, before he recognizes this particular alarm for what it is.

"Kaiju?" he demands incredulously of the room at large. "How the fuck is that even _possible_?"

"I don't know, but it's happening," Hank says, typing frantically at his console. "Category...three, looks like, currently twenty miles off of St. Lawrence Island, but judging by its trajectory…looks more likely to make landfall near Nome."

"That's hardly a major population center," another tech comments.

Charles gives her a sharp glance. "Does that make it somehow less worthy of protection?"

"I just mean...didn't they used to aim for big cities?"

"Maybe it got lost," Hank mutters.

Jean bursts through the doorway, red-faced and breathing hard. "Marshall! Urgent call from Tokyo, Grand Marshall Pentecost on the line for you."

"He'd damn well better be," Charles grumbles. It still hasn't quite sunk in yet. When had a new Breach opened? Shouldn't they have gotten advance warning? What the hell were any of these fancy scientists _for_? "I'll take the call in here."

His hands are shaking, he notices as he reaches for the phone. How strange. Otherwise, he feels pretty calm, all things considered. "Xavier here."

"I imagine you're getting the same alerts we are," Pentecost says without preamble. It always catches Charles by surprise just how similar his voice is to his late father's. Charles's old Marshall. God, that takes him back.

"We are," Charles says grimly, shaking off the memories. "So how the hell are we only finding out about a new Breach _now_ with a bloody Kaiju emerging from the ocean?"

Pentecost snorts. It might almost be a laugh. "There is no Breach yet. At least, not according to my scientists, and since I've got the ones who closed the damn thing last time, I'm going to trust them on this. This Kaiju's a remnant from the incident two months ago, part of the batch we took down in Tokyo. No idea how it's been hidden away this long, or why it missed the party last time, but it did, and it's probably pissed about it." His tone turns brisk, professional. "I'm getting three Jaegers in the air now, but unfortunately, this one's on your side of the pond. They'll take a good six hours at least to get to you, and God only knows what sort of damage it'll wreak by then. I know your shop's not fully operational yet, but do you have anything ready to scramble?"

Charles closes his eyes a moment, breathing deeply. So. Here they are. "Yes," he says, his voice sounding distant even to his own ears. "I do."

* * *

By the time he gets off the call with Pentecost, Erik and Raven are already in the command center waiting for him. "Heard the alarm," Raven says breezily. "Figured we should suit up. You coming along for the ride?"

For all her studied nonchalance, her gray eyes are warm and intent on his. Charles's throat feels tight with it. " _Midnight Storm_ is ready for deployment, you know."

"Kurt and Ororo are shaping up to be fine Rangers," Raven acknowledges. "I trained them myself, I should know."

"And they're also _kids_ who've never encountered a Kaiju outside of a simulation before," Erik puts in, not unkindly. His long body is all coiled energy now, restless and kinetic, like a predator preparing to pounce. Finally ready to be unleashed upon the monsters.

Charles gives him a faint smile. "Raven and I were just as young, when we first piloted our Jaeger."

"And you had backup then. So should _Midnight Storm_."

Raven rolls her eyes. "He doesn't need convincing. He's already decided."

"You're not in my head just yet," Charles says mildly. "Don't assume you know what I'm thinking."

Raven just grins, wolflike, her expression eerily similar to Erik's.

"All right, then." Charles moves to the nearest microphone, so that he can address all Shatterdome personnel. "Prepare to deploy two Jaegers by airlift: _Midnight Storm_ and--" He glances at Raven, eyebrow raised. "Does she have a name yet?"

Raven's smile softens into something sweeter, more genuine, but it's Erik who answers. "The _Mystique Brotherhood_."

Warmth blossoms in Charles's chest. He's sure his own expression gives him away, but he doesn't mind. They'll both be in his head soon enough anyway. 

When he turns back to the rest of the command center, he notices that all eyes are now on him, nervous and expectant. This is new to them, Charles realizes, all at once. It's been ten years since the last war ended, and many of them hadn't been a part of it. By the time Charles and Raven first joined up as pilots, Kaiju attacks had become practically routine, at least in terms of Shatterdome response. Humans can adapt to nearly any circumstances; the urgency and adrenaline didn't ease, exactly, but they had become a strange sort of _normal_.

That's not the case anymore. Maybe it will become so again, but this is their first Kaiju. It's an occasion that should be marked.

And that falls to Charles now.

"Prepare to deploy _Midnight Storm_ and _Mystique Brotherhood_ ," he repeats, keeping his tone level, trying to provide the calm they need to hear. "This is just one Kaiju, friends. We weren't expecting it quite this soon, but I promise you, it's nothing we can't handle. Let's remind the world what the Jaegers were made for." He takes a breath, knowing he's no great orator, but he _is_ their Marshall, and for some damn reason, all these people are looking to him. "We've been entrusted with a humbling amount of power, here in this Shatterdome, with these Jaegers," he says. He can feel Raven's hand settle on his shoulder, gripping firmly; knows that Erik stands just behind her, equally resolute. "And those with great power protect those without. That's our message to the world."

There's a moment of quiet following his pronouncement. Then Hank waves his hands impatiently, rolling his eyes. "So get to work already!"

They all do, while Charles suppresses a smile. At his back, Erik leans down just enough to murmur into his ear. "Still fighting a defensive war, are we?"

"The best defense is a strong offense," Charles retorts, the corners of his mouth twitching. "Are you ready to join me in it this time?"

Erik chuckles, the sound vibrating low in his throat. "I suppose you're about to find out."

* * *

Charles can't be the one to coordinate the overall attack if he's Drifting along with a Jaeger, so he entrusts authority over the command center to Hank. "You've taught Jean how to assist with Cerebro, we'll be fine," he assures him blithely. "And it's not like I'll be cut off from communications. I just need someone I trust to keep an eye on the bigger picture." When Hank opens his mouth to protest, looking like he might edge over into panic, he adds, "You can do this. No one knows how Jaegers fight better than you. You practically built them with your bare hands."

"All right," Hank finally agrees. He clasps Charles's hand tightly for a moment. "Good luck. Try to keep Raven safe, yeah?"

Charles laughs. "Haven't you caught on yet? She's the one who keeps _us_ safe, Hank."

Hank gives him a crooked smile. "Yeah. I guess she is." He exhales and nods to himself, squaring his shoulders. "And it's just one Kaiju, nowhere near the biggest you've faced, in a relatively remote location where there's not much collateral damage to worry about, and Jaeger tech is way more advanced than it used to be. Totally manageable."

"Couldn't have designed a better trial run," Charles agrees wryly. "We've got this."

"We'd better."

* * *

Cerebro resides on the same upper level as the drivesuit ready rooms for all the Jaegers, all sharing a narrow circular corridor that rings the exterior of the base. Raven's Jaeger was given the berth in closest proximity to it -- not out of necessity, but they'd always known hers would be the most likely test subject for Cerebro, even if she hadn't _needed_ Charles's assistance to share the Drift.

Which means, of course, that in order to get from the command center to Cerebro, Charles must once again engage in his battle of wills with the world's slowest lift. It's a battle he loses in increments every single day, at the gradual cost of his sanity.

This time, Erik hops in just before the lift doors creak shut.

"You could have just taken the stairs, you know," Charles remarks, the corners of his mouth twitching involuntarily. "It would have been faster."

"I'm aware." Erik doesn't quite smile, but it's still there in the fine crow's feet crinkling at the edges of his pale eyes. "But this seemed...expedient."

"Oh? Something you'd like to share?" Charles teases, then sobers at the weight of Erik's gaze on his. When Erik remains silent a moment too long, he goes on, "There's no rush, you know. I realize there's still a fair amount unresolved between us. But it can hold a little longer. We'll be in each other's heads soon enough." He huffs out a breath, neither a laugh nor a sigh. "No secrets in the Drift."

"Is that a warning?" Erik asks drily.

Charles tries on a smile. "Not quite the word I'd choose. But I'd understand if you were...less than thrilled at the idea."

Erik shrugs, his eyes never leaving Charles's. "Maybe it would have bothered me once. Not anymore."

"No?"

"I'm pretty sure I've got nothing left to hide," Erik says, and bends down to kiss him. Thoroughly. Rather more thoroughly than is warranted, given their current location. It's the first time Charles has ever thought the lift moved too quickly.

He has to admit, Erik makes an eloquent point. Though, damn it, their height difference was neckache-inducing enough even _before_ the chair; they're going to need to come up with better ways to do this. Like on a bed. Horizontal surfaces are the best equalizers, he's found.

"Does that resolve anything?" Erik murmurs against his lips, as the lift groans to a halt.

It doesn't really, but it's just so fucking _nice_ , every inch of Charles's skin flushing with heat. Frankly, he doesn't have the energy to fight both the Kaiju _and_ Erik's indomitable will at the same time, so something's got to give. And this way promises to be a lot more fun. Perhaps that's resolution enough.

It's as good a place as any to begin.

"I'll let you know in the morning," he says with a smirk. "Assuming we all survive this, of course."

Erik straightens with a laugh. "It'll take more than one measly category three to get rid of me, Charles. You ought to know that by now."

* * *

Things move very quickly once they emerge, the still-raucous alarms heightening the sense of urgency all across the base. Erik is hustled off to get into his drivesuit, and Charles has his own preparations to make. Still, he's not surprised that Raven slips into Cerebro's chamber, scant minutes before the two Jaegers are scheduled to power up. She's already suited up and ready to go. "Hey," she says softly, coming to stand behind him. When he glances up at her, he can see that her eyes are wide as she takes in the view. She's never actually poked her head into Cerebro before. "Wow. This is...intense."

"It's a fairly complex setup," he agrees. Most of Cerebro is controlled from the central console, where Charles sits, with a dizzying array of screens surrounding him to replicate what his view would be from within the Jaeger dome. There's also a monitoring station set up in one corner, where Jean quietly calibrates the equipment just as Hank taught her. She keeps her head ducked down and focus on her work, trying to give the siblings a modicum of privacy. "But it looks more daunting than it actually is to operate. It's just...Drifting. Without the physical component of operating the Jaeger."

"But all the mental load." She rests her hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. "You're sure you want to go through with it? Like _this_? Jumping right into a full deployment?"

He covers her hand with his own. "It's what it was always meant for. And if you're going to be in a fight, I always want to be there with you, in any way I can." He studies her face, searchingly. "Are _you_ sure? I know you didn't want me in your head again--"

She laughs, the sound only slightly brittle. "Charles, I think the last attempt proved that you're already in my head, Cerebro or not." She bends down to kiss him on the cheek. "See you in the Drift, brother."

And all too shortly thereafter, it's time.

Cerebro's final element is a headpiece that extends down from the low ceiling, fitting into place snugly around Charles's skull. Its design was based on the equipment a scientist during the first war had jury-rigged together in order to Drift with a Kaiju brain; Hank's modifications are far more elegant, of course, and carry significantly less risk, since it interfaces with the Jaeger Drift much in the same way as the pilots' helmets. The communication link between Jaegers and command center connects into Cerebro as well. Charles really could run command from here, if he so chose, though he's wary of multitasking at that level while in the Drift himself. Maybe next time, once he's grown more accustomed to it.

"Initiating neural handshake," Hank says, voice tinny over the comms.

Cerebro hums to life.

Charles breathes in deeply and lets the Drift wash over him.

It's nearly impossible to describe the sensation of Drifting to one who's never piloted a Jaeger. The floodgates opening into his mind, the crackling electricity of neurons firing, the sudden rush of images and memories -- his own, his partners'. He lives in every moment of his and their lives simultaneously. He's eight years old at his mother's second wedding, the starched collar of his shirt itching at his neck, sneaking glances at his round-faced new sister, who makes a very ill-tempered flower girl. He's seeing his new Jaeger for the first time, stretching up endlessly above him, heart pounding at the thought of being entrusted to control something so massive, so monstrous, so beautiful. He's alone in a hospital bed, the stench of disinfectant thick in his nostrils, and he can't feel his legs, he _can't feel his legs_.

He's looking at Raven at six years old and she doesn't like her new mommy at _all_ and her new brother is super annoying but he lets her steal the last of his cake and doesn't tattle on her so maybe it'll be okay. She's in the middle of fifth grade art class when the announcement comes over the loudspeaker that a giant monster is attacking San Francisco, classes are canceled for the rest of the day and everyone has to assemble in the auditorium, where they all watch in horror as the Golden Gate Bridge is destroyed on the TV. She's in _Professor Mystique_ with Charles as they run a Kaiju through with the Jaeger's sword extension and she's never felt such strength, such power, such fierce joy, and Charles can feel it as though it's his own.

And together he and Raven watch an adolescent Erik scream in rage and terror as a Kaiju bursts through the concrete wall of the very first Shatterdome, his mother throwing herself in front of him as though she could protect him with her own fragile body. Charles reaches out as though to take Erik's hand as Raven shushes him gently, he can feel tears running down her cheeks, and the memory flashes past and Erik is running around a track outside the Jaeger Academy in Frankfurt, pushing himself harder, faster -- he has to be the best, the strongest -- _no you don't_ Raven murmurs while Charles reassures him _you already are, in all the ways that matter_.

Charles feels as though he's wrapping his arms around the both of them, holding them together, helping them breathe through it. He sees himself through Erik's eyes, young and smug and infuriating and fascinating, this odd unassuming Ranger who's rising so high, so rapidly, _what is it that makes him tick_ , and Erik wants to take him apart and he does, inch by maddening inch, pressing kisses to places that make Charles writhe and gasp and Erik can't bear to look away. He sees himself now, older and quieter, the mantle of authority that settles so lightly over his shoulders, and Erik still doesn't know how he does it but feels that same insatiable need to _understand_ \-- but more gently, this time, more carefully, more aware of all the ways even love can bruise and break them.

_Is that what we're calling it now?_ Charles asks, his own heart filled near to bursting with it, and Erik laughs ruefully and replies, _No secrets in the Drift, Charles, remember?_

_Oh, Christ, you two are back on your bullshit, aren't you?_ Raven gripes, but it's rich with affection and she deliberately sends them a glimpse of Hank, naked and splayed out beneath her, as mingled punishment and warning.

At some point, the AI interface informs the command center blandly that the pilot to Jaeger connection has fully synchronized. Charles brings up his own hands, unbidden, to complete the neural handshake along with Raven and Erik, though of course the physical component is entirely unnecessary on his part.

They Drift.

"All right," Hank's voice says over the comms. "Neural handshake successful, link holding strong and steady. _Mystique Brotherhood_ is ready to launch. Give 'em hell, Rangers."

Charles smiles, can feel the same grin pull inexorably at the corners of his copilots' mouths. "We will," he says, speaking for all of them. Raven cackles gleefully, itching for the fight, back where she belongs at last. Erik's joy is quieter but no less fierce for it. Oh, they're _glorious_.

Time to save the world.

* * *

  
  
  
[Art by Ireliss](https://irelise.tumblr.com/post/630014819834249216/art-for-kaydeefalls-and-their-incredible-pacific)  



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